Last Seconds of Old Years
by Cyprith
Summary: With the old year counting down, Quinn muses on how much everything's changed. (Part of the "And Wolves Beneath Their Seams" continuity.)


Last Seconds of Old Years

* * *

About a hundred fifty years, give or take—Quinn's seen pretty much everything, and it's all shit. Maybe not the worst, sure. Not like Carol, born into shine and hope, and watching all that burn up in mushrooms.

Or maybe it _is_ worse. Some days he thinks so. At least Carol has a memory of the Mall, all the buildings still standing and only humans in the streets. What's he got? His first memory is his own two feet, blistered in his older brother's boots, spots of blood blooming on the heel as he struggled to keep up with the caravan. Gunfire as common as birdsong, back then. More common. Until the birds went—south, west, wherever the hell birds go—and nothing. Just gunfire. Raiders and slavers and Brotherhood shits.

Mostly shit, period.

Until now. A hundred and twenty years since his own mother wouldn't know his face, and Quinn thinks maybe he doesn't know every goddamn thing about every goddamn thing after all. And a year ago, if somebody'd told him a story about a vault girl with old world morals, pretty enough to make even fucking _Charon_ smile_, _he'd have called it a hell of a joke.

But there they are.

Quinn sits at a table in the corner of Carol's, Willow at his elbow and several bottles of beer between them. At the other end of the room, V sits at the bar with Charon and Gob—Gob brought back special for the occasion—talking and laughing with both of them and Carol, too, easy like breathing in a room full of ghouls.

And maybe if you weren't looking, you wouldn't see it. But Quinn's looking. And the man sitting at V's side is not the man he's known for fifteen years. Even from here, Quinn can see the way they reach for each other. So smooth it's practiced—obviously habit—their hands tangling, untangling, searching out new places to map. V taps a rhythm on Charon's knuckles, sketches something on his arm. Charon's fingers find her pulse, her back. His knee bumps hers.

"Like a couple of kids," Willow says beside him, following his eyes. She's smiling, too, like a secret.

Quinn shakes his head. And he's staring—never a good idea in Ninth Circle, probably a worse idea now—but he's never seen a saint before V walked in, never even figured they could exist. And yet, there he goes—Charon's smiling again. Not much. Nothing to see, hardly—just a twitch at the corner of his ragged mouth—but it's not a glare, it's not a blank stare, and Quinn knows the look. Hasn't seen it in a hundred years, but he knows it.

Had a wife too, once.

"Kind of gives you hope, doesn't it?" he says. Finally, finally looking away, he pulls a pack of smokes from his coat, abandoned beside him.

Willow grins over the lip of her beer. "What, you hoping for a smoothskin, too?"

She laughs and Quinn laughs with her, lets it drop. A hundred years and you get good at that—letting things go. But maybe he's out of practice, because his thoughts keep circling back.

He doesn't know really how to explain it. From the outside, it looks simple enough. Two mercs doing some freelance work. Happens all the time. Nothing there to name.

But it's bigger than that. Bigger than all of them. So big a person can't quite touch it—can't even put words to it.

So big a person can only string spent shells on an old chain, worry them like beads when nights get too dark and too slow.

They have days—weeks, now—without gunfire in the distance.

They have streets full of caravans and the warped bones of dead monsters.

They have clean water, even though they don't need it.

And they have _respect_.

When War and Death walked out to clean the wastes—they came from _here_.

Yesterday, a trader shook Quinn's hand. Didn't flinch. Didn't even look twice. And last week, a Brotherhood squad passed through, guns all holstered—even with Willow leaning on the subway railing, catcalling, "_Aw, don't you love me anymore?" _

Quinn hasn't seen a raider in weeks, not on any of his runs. Every day, more ex-slaves pass through, headed for the Lincoln Memorial. Even Talon Company's just a bad memory, sticking far and away from downtown DC.

Yet, just last year, Charon spent his days breaking legs at Ahzrukhal's word. But now Charon sits at Carol's bar, his hand like a hubcap on V's knee. Until, a minute later, she pulls his arm up and around her shoulders, leans into him like practice, like patience, singing along to Christmas songs still playing on the radio, ten minutes to New Year's midnight.

V changed everything. Changed things Quinn would have sworn couldn't be changed. They call the two of them War and Death, but Quinn's seen war and he's seen death and these two are something altogether bigger. Things are _better. _The world fucking _ended_, but things are gettingbetter.

Quinn lowers his gaze. Drinks his beer. Thinks about the way his caravan looked at him when he started losing pieces of his face—people he'd been walking with his whole life, recoiling like he'd started spitting plague.

At his side, Willow smiles. She sees through him like a window—always had—nudges his shoulder.

"Cheer-up," she says. "You're too damn pretty to look so sad."

And Quinn laughs—unexpected, nearly snorts beer through his nose—ends up coughing through the rest of song on the radio until Three-dog croons, "_And now the moment you've all been waiting for, ladies and gentlemen. The last seconds of an old year, but would look at that baby _shine? _Fresh waters, no slavers—my, oh my, whatever will the new year bring?"_

"Shut up, Three-dog," V snaps, but smiling, sleepy, her head tucked under Charon's chin.

"_Let's_ _count her down, shall we?_ _10… 9… 8…"_

Quinn finds himself thinking about the oncoming year, fresh water and people getting their feet under them again. Thinks about clearing out the feral-corridors of the museum. Might be more ghouls coming, what with the roads easier.

"_7… 6… 5… 4…"_

At the bar, V grins, sits upright. "We had a tradition in the vault," she starts.

But Three-dog finishes, "_3… 2… 1! Happy New Year, Wasteland!" _and Quinn doesn't get to see what her vault tradition might be, because Underworld has tradition, too, and tradition leaves him with a mouthful of Willow, warm like smoke, leather beneath his hands.

Quinn leans into her, smiling against her lips, presses his forehead to hers when they finally part for air. And judging by the cheers—by the singing and laughing and clanking bottles found from Wasteland-wide—judging by Willow's fingers tugging the smear of her red lipstick from his skin—

It's going to be a hell of a new year.


End file.
